CERN and Rackspace to Collaborate on Hybrid Cloud Platform

As announced on the Rackspace blog, the company is collaborating with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)   on what's described as "an amazing mission," focused on OpenStack. CERN operates the world’s largest particle physics laboratory and its research has uncovered some of the mysteries of the universe. CERN was already a member of the OpenStack community and It will now work with Rackspace to build out a hybrid cloud.

CERN openlab has launched a pilot hybrid cloud project with Rackspace as its researchers aim to enable the expansion of OpenStack-based private cloud infrastructure already in use. According to the Rackspace post:

"Through our relationship, we’ll work with CERN on a number of initiatives, first of which is to create a reference architecture and operational model for federated cloud services between Rackspace Private Cloud, Rackspace Public Cloud and CERN’s own OpenStack-powered clouds."

Tim Bell, infrastructure manager in CERN’s IT department said: “We definitely see great value in open source technologies like OpenStack. They foster continuous technological improvements through community contributions, while also giving us the ability to quickly address challenges, such as massive scaling, by leveraging the work of others.”

CERN currently uses OpenStack software to manage resources across its two data centers that power the Large Hadron Collider (the world's largest particle accelerator). Also, although not everyone realizes it, CERN was the home of Tim Berners-Lee, who many credit as the "father of the web" for his contributions to the rise of the open web. The research facility's work with OpenStack could end up helping the platform itself to become more sophisticated and flexible.

 Near the bottom of this page, you can watch a video on how CERN and Racskpace will collaborate together.